When you are a sole operator in any kind of business you need to be kind of a jack of all trades. So while I have the ‘dream job’ of playing with gadgets and watching movies and listening to music, occasionally I have to stop and line up a few thousand words on the computer screen, or enter a hundred receipts and invoices into a financial database, or submit to our beloved government a Business Activity Statement, along with a suitcase full of money.
Or lug stuff around, unpack it, pack it up, come up with solutions to problems.
For example, on Saturday I spent several minutes holding a 47 inch LG TV above its stand while one of my daughters worked out how to manoeuvre the lugs into place. That was after searching through all the packaging trying to find the four missing screws that would secure it. Of course, they weren’t there.
Just now I completed the two part task of packing up a pair of stereo loudspeakers. These were Usher Dancer Mini Two Diamond DMD loudspeakers. Part 1 was last night, when I spent pretty much a full hour disassembling them (they each have a massive cast iron plinth) and boxing them up. Each speaker was doubled boxed. The plinths had their own cartons. All the conical feet had to be individually wrapped.
This morning was Part 2. The two loudspeakers each had wooden plates to go onto their sides. These originally had steel straps to hold them in place, but my packing facilities aren’t quite that extreme. Instead I used plastic straps. Then I laid both of those unwieldy cardboard and wood cartons down on a pallet, squeezed the plinth cartons between them, and strapped the whole lot down. Another good half hour.
The review, incidentally, is in the current Best Buys Home Theatre, which should be out in the newsagents now.